to your first bit--no way, definitely not problems of high end good years, just kind of a "if you had to pick one" reasoning from my research, handgrade edges out goodyear a little bit and then yes I misspoke, that is what I meant-- i.e. AE and Meermin LM's (and Classics) are both well made and of quality materials, but as frankie22 was saying earlier AE can be a bit boring, so I would much rather have these at this point. by learning about the construction and...

See that's what I am talking aboutttttt. Yes good information on all of it, particularly the bits about construction, and then from there the materials used (very cool bit about the oak bark soles) Gotta agree on the objective vs subjective too-- from my snooping I think I would need to agree that handgrade is a better than bench, but on two bench grade shoes if one is better looking (IMO) I'm likely to pay a bit of a premium because hey, no one here doesn't enjoy...

Thanks for that. Valid point, in reality... as you say, it obviously is easy to tell these have excellent value, but I am just trying to find out where best to spend my (limited) money. I have bought only brand new shoes, (although it may have been via eBay here and there) and I am trying to use this forum for discussion and advice (kind of the idea, isn't it?) to best determine which brand new shoes I should be buying now at $X vs. saving up to $2X or $3x. By...

Gents, For those of you who have bought the RTW linea maestro line, what is the consensus in terms of quality compared to carmina and to crockett & jones, two of the favorites here on SF? Through reading these posts, I have been seeing a mixed bag; some say just below, others on par, but everyone is raving about the value for the cost of the shoes.
As far as I can tell, the construction is exactly as good. Some have been saying the leather not quite at the same...